flower

The connections between plants and animals are incredibly close and often convoluted. We understand the roles of pollinators, but others are very weird. The best links have not even been discovered by biologists yet.

This desert centipede is a pretty common insect. They are found in damp locations and in the bosque are usually near to well watered lawns under impermeable surfaces, like plastic containers. They avoid strong sunlight and are much, MUCH more shy and fragile than their reputation would suggest.

Damselflies are often found around tumbleweeds. The higher moisture levels and lower average temperatures found in there attract their favorite prey, which are mosquitos. The damselflies also congregate, as this is their mating season.

The profusion of tall plants at the edge of the ditches right now attract many insects to lay eggs in the preferred sheltered spots. Every insect is different in their needs.

This is a pretty common butterfly- the chequered skipper. This on is warming up in the sun. Autumn is in the air and the geese are making their way back into the bosque, so everything is in transition...again.

This is the pygmy blue, another very common butterfly. There are also an abundance of moths around, but they are much harder to photograph.

The ditches have many muskrats in them. I never appreciated until this picture just how important the water depth was to these animals. This one was trying to dive to avoid being seen, but as the water was only a few inches deep it eventually it gave up with a huff, and waddled into the nearby cattails to hide.

A high alpine meadow has different butterflies because of a different ecosystem. They tend to be bigger species than down in the valley. This is an American Lady. The identification cues can be kind of cryptic.

 

This rather battered butterfly is a common wood nymph. Many adults are dying right now after they have laid eggs and can be easily picked up as they limp along on the ground.

 

 I think this is a monarch, but the range made it pretty hard to tell. Monarchs are pretty well known, but many of the similar butterflies are known as viceroys, admirals, ladies...a whole hierarchy.

This fuzzy guy fell out of a tree while I was trying to photograph a garter snake (failed). After a few stunned minutes, it took off at a fast clip for the base of the tree it fell from. I have no idea how it orients itself in the world. Apparently, it is a  tent caterpillar moth.

The Abert's squirrels in the Sandias are very different than the grey squirels down in the bosque. There are many squirrel types around. The Aberts tend to be dark ash colored with tufts on their ears. This one was actually begging, but trying to be nonchalant about it. It didn't seem like a very good climber, actually fell out of a few branches, so it could have been a youngster. Apart from the ground squirrels, most of the species are very connected to woodlands. They are much more omnivore than fairy tales would suggest.

The buffalo gourds are a fascinating plant. Reading the internet sources it seems no-one can decide much about this plant. The fruit is poisonous, but the plant has been used for many things . Below the surface, a giant taproot extends, that at full size can weight up to 100 lbs.

 

Up in the branches, the parasitic mistletoe is growing. There are actually many species of this parasite. The reason one tree is attacked and others are not is pretty cryptic, but these perplexing issues often come up if you spent to much time researching and not enough time observing in the field. The more expert a person is, the less they seem to know...

 

This picture is fascinating. These are the remains of a failed spawning event earlier in the summer. These tadpole desiccated long before they had a chance to metamorphose. When the air temp is in triple digits there is no time, even in deep desert pools, for frogs to grow. Those carcasses are now a fertilizer for a green algae that is growing in what would otherwise be a barren clay. With cooler temps, the water is now hanging around for a lot longer, but the frogs appear to be long gone.

These desert pools are isolated, but I think car tires bring in eggs and seeds. This is the first year of the five I have been observing that these clam shrimp have been seen. Each year the mesocosm I see is totally different. This bad picture shows an invertebrate that looks just like a fairy shrimp inside a tiny clam. It is actually unrelated to either of those species, but a fascinating species I have found around Bernalillo town, but never at this site before.